If you thought Mike White was demanding ...

Ms. Byrd-Bennett, who headed the Cleveland schools when Mike White was mayor, has been named CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. Her boss is Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff.

The Chicago Tribune notes that one reason Ms. Byrd-Bennett, who was the interim chief education officer in Chicago, got the top job is that she has a “strong working relationship” with Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis.

Ms. Lewis, herself a powerful personality, led the union in a seven-school day strike earlier this fall.

Ms. Byrd-Bennett tells the Chicago newspaper that the question of school closings must be handled with lots of input from various groups.

"There is a process," she says. "Everything must be on the table. As we've said, we face huge academic and huge financial issues in our district. This is about matching seats to the number of children we have. It's about putting every piece of information we have on the table. It's also about community trust and respect. So there's a process. There is no plan. … But everything is being considered in consultation with the board and fact-gathering and the mayor."

Sen. Rob Portman isn't on the Republican ticket — it's Rep. Paul Ryan who had the honor of enduring 90 minutes of hell last night with Joe Biden — but the Cincinnati political veteran has emerged as something of a ”shadow running mate” for GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

BusinessWeek.com notes that Sen. Portman is the most powerful Romney surrogate on the campaign trail and is a frequent presence in ads.

“It's tempting to suspect that the Romney campaign is intentionally burying Ryan because he's turned out to be a liability,” writes Joshua Green.

“Conspiracy theorists might suspect that Romney's advisers, some of whom didn't want Ryan on the ticket and preferred Portman or Tim Pawlenty, are passive-aggressively having their revenge. My own hunch, though, is that Romney's shadow running mate in these ads is really a reflection of how vitally important it is for Romney to win Ohio.”

MarketWatch.com offers kind words for the Canton Student Loan Foundation, which was launched in 1922 and since then has lent more than $27 million to nearly 5,000 students.

“This year, 450 students are using its loans to help pay for college, up 25% from a year ago, and (foundation head Kim) Leggett expects at least the same number of students next fall — all part of what Leggett calls a recent 'gradual rise' in the number of families turning to the foundation for help,” according to the story.

As tuition hits new highs and families scramble to find aid, “community associations (like that in Canton) are increasingly filling the gap, serving as lenders for college-bound seniors,” MarketWatch.com notes.

The Wall Street Journal has a roundup of celebrities' Twitter quips about last night's vice presidential debate, and one comedian had Cleveland on his mind.

Here was Dennis Miller's reaction to what he saw: “Biden's incessant smile is reminding me of the Cleveland Indian's Hat Logo, which is reminding me of baseball. Adios.”

This tale of two auto workers, from BusinessWeek.com, looks at the lives of a unionized GM employee in Lordstown and a nonunion Kia worker in Georgia.

The Lordstown worker, Joe Geiser, 51, came to Ohio in 2008 for the GM job, then lost it six months later.

In September 2009, after nine months out of work, Mr. Geiser was rehired.

“I was getting 40 hours a week at my full rate — $28 an hour,” he says, noting that his United Auto Workers contract guaranteed him pay security. “Ohio would have been in really bad shape had President Obama not rescued the auto industry — not only the auto industry but also all the sub-suppliers that he's created jobs for.”

The Kia worker, Terry Gosha, 46, in the past three years has been promoted from a $14.90-an-hour assembly-line job to a salaried group leader position overseeing 35 people.

He doesn't mind that he's not part of a union.

“There's plenty of work here — and everyone feels secure,” Mr. Gosha says. “I have friends in unions who say they just ask for more and more money and never seem to get anything done. You get paid more, but a lot of that pay goes back into the union.”

But he's happy the auto industry bailout saved some jobs.

“It doesn't hurt us that the other companies are doing well,” he says. “There's enough for everyone.”